Christmas Day In Wellington NZ

Written on Saturday, 25 December 2010 by NZTravelInsider

Learn what Christmas Day is like in Wellington New Zealand and see photos of Wellington city center, Wellington’s waterfront, and the red flowers on Pohutukawa trees in Wellington.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the New Zealand Travel Insider!

It was a gorgeous day today in Wellington, so I decided to head out for a morning walk to see how busy Wellington City really is on Christmas Day and to get some photographs of the red flowers on Pohutukawa trees (New Zealand’s Christmas tree) that line the Wellington waterfront.

As a photographer, I was certainly not disappointed to see that Wellington city center was completely dead on Christmas Day. Not because I am ashamed to have people see me with a camera, but because I was able to shoot uncluttered pictures of Wellington!

While there were a few people walking on the streets, Wellington was mostly quiet and empty on Christmas. So I had a chance to get a few nice photos of Lambton Quay, Mr. Plimmer at Plimmer Steps, and of the Old Bank Shopping Arcade.

Then I headed down to Wellington’s waterfront to see whether there was more life to be found there. There were more people walking, running, and biking along the waterfront than there were in the city center, which surprised me a bit. And while there were people on foot and bike, there was nobody to be found on the boats that were docked at the marina.

The flowers on the Pohutukawa trees were looking lovely. Unfortunately, in the past few days we have had quite a bit of rain and high winds, so many of the flowers were damaged. But I still found a few undamaged and colourful flowers here and there while walking along the waterfront of Wellington.

And the good news is that while many of the Pohutukawa trees were in bloom, there are still a good few trees on which the flowers have not blossomed yet, so I suspect that we will continue enjoying the red flowers on the Pohutukawa trees well into January. By the way, if you want to know when the Pohutukawa flowers started to come out, it was around the end of November.

All in all, Christmas Day in Wellington was a quiet, but beautiful day to be out and about and enjoy the sun!

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